Turkey's Davutoğlu says Assad prefers to be like Milosevic not Gorbachev

“Yes, we had good relations with Syria for nine years, but Assad was not fighting with his own people then. Last year, we wanted Assad to be Syria's Gorbachev, but he preferred to be like Milosevic of Syria. That's the problem,” Davutoğlu said on Thursday as he addressed students at George Washington University.

Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, served as president of the union from 1985 until its collapse in 1991. His attempts at reform helped to end the Cold War and also ended the political supremacy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), dissolving the Soviet Union. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.

Davutoğlu said dictators in the Middle East, including ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Assad and ousted Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, were all a continuation of the Cold War, which ended in the 1990s. During his speech, Davutoğlu also reiterated that “Turkey cannot remain indifferent to a massacre in its region even if everybody else remains silent and indifferent.”